


open hand or closed fist would be fine

by Harrypottersmystry



Series: cherry wine [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Anxious Zuko (Avatar), Canon Compliant, Gaang (Avatar), Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, I forgot how tags work, In this house we love and respect Mai, Light Angst, Male Bonding, Past Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Post-Episode: s03e13 Firebending Masters, Pre-Slash If You Squint, Precious Aang (Avatar), Western Air Temple, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, even zuko admits it, i really do be working through all my emotions using hozier, inspired by cherry wine, katara is actually not that bad but zuko has Trauma, sokka tries to be a good bro, well zuko's awkward version of it, zuko is homesick for his uncle and mai, zuko is scared of everyone but he is working on it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28476399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harrypottersmystry/pseuds/Harrypottersmystry
Summary: Downstairs, he could hear the loud, cheerful voices of the Duke and Teo, of the Water Tribe siblings laughing together, of Toph yelling at Aang or Haru. If he went down now and stepped into their space, silence would follow him in. “You are the enemy!” Katara’s eyes would scream. “You live because I let you!”The thought didn’t hurt Zuko, exactly- he hardly knew them, after all- but it made him cautious. He had no doubt that if he toed out of line so much as an inch, if he pushed their hospitality just a little too far, he would be mincemeat. Zuko wondered just what counted as too far. He imagined Katara lunging for his throat if he let Aang get burnt, if he forgot one of his chores, if he looked at Sokka or Toph wrong. He imagined himself letting her because she deserved to get her revenge. He thought it would simply be a matter of time.Zuko didn’t push it.
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: cherry wine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085762
Comments: 7
Kudos: 162





	open hand or closed fist would be fine

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Cherry Wine by Hozier.  
> These characters and this universe don't belong to me. I just like working through my emotions using fictional universes :)
> 
> TW: no actual violence, just Zuko's imagination and the threat of Azula attacking the temple in the future.

The rest of the group would often watch Zuko train Aang in the mornings. They couldn’t all be spared at once, but he always felt at least two pairs of eyes on him. Katara would watch with her back ramrod straight and lips pursed, her eyes cold and as blue as Azula’s fire. She was probably the one he was most wary of; although Toph too could probably trounce him in seconds in a fight, she seemed to mostly ignore him, apparently only “watching” him to taunt Aang from the sidelines. Sokka would drift intermittently between the inner rooms and the wide courtyard where they practiced. He made Zuko uncomfortable; often, he would catch Sokka looking at him with an unreadable expression, his gaze more calculating than threatening. Zuko didn’t know how to deal with whatever that was, and so he avoided him.

He had the afternoons mostly free to himself. He wandered off towards far corners of the temple that he didn’t think anyone other than Aang would go to and simply… existed. Somewhere between starving on the road to Ba Sing Se and being coddled at the palace by the servants, he’d lost his strength. So Zuko often spent hours alone, doing pushups and fire-squats and running through as many drills as he knew, trying to be ready. Trying to be ready for Azula the way he had never been ready before. He pushed himself to the brink of exhaustion and then lay, panting, on the cold stone floor of the temple. And then he let himself think.

He usually thought about retribution, and when it would reach him. Downstairs, he could hear the loud, cheerful voices of the Duke and Teo, of the Water Tribe siblings laughing together, of Toph yelling at Aang or Haru. If he went down now and stepped into their space, silence would follow him in. “You are the enemy!” Katara’s eyes would scream. “You live because I let you!”

The thought didn’t hurt Zuko, exactly- he hardly knew them, after all- but it made him cautious. He had no doubt that if he toed out of line so much as an inch, if he pushed their hospitality just a little too far, he would be mincemeat. Zuko wondered just what counted as too far. He imagined Katara lunging for his throat if he let Aang get burnt, if he forgot one of his chores, if he looked at Sokka or Toph wrong. He imagined himself letting her because she deserved to get her revenge. He thought it would simply be a matter of time.

Zuko didn’t push it.

A few days after they’d officially started firebending training, Katara made Sokka take Zuko with him on a hunt.

“He needs to pull his weight,” she said, hardly glancing at Zuko. “And we haven’t had any meat this week. Toph’s getting angsty.”

“I’ll get my swords,” Zuko said awkwardly, after a moment of uncomfortable silence, and fled from their twin blue gazes.

Sokka was silent at first. Zuko knew he was normally the opposite- loud and brash and bursting with bad jokes and new ideas. He kept quiet too, not wanting to be on the receiving end of one of those confusing stares that Sokka fixed on him during training. He wondered if Sokka was silent simply because he didn’t want to talk to Zuko, or if this was Katara’s way of getting revenge. He considered his chances- Sokka had a sword, but Zuko had his dao and could also bend. It didn’t seem like a very efficient way to attack him.

Sokka cleared his throat. “I didn’t know you could use a sword. Uh… swords, I guess.” He paused for longer than Zuko thought he would. Was he supposed to reply to that? Before Zuko could give him a belated nod, Sokka started talking again.

“I mean Aang did tell us you saved his life as the Blue Spirit, but I didn’t actually process that that meant you could also fight with swords.”

Zuko was surprised. “He told you about that?”

Sokka nodded. “Yeah, he told us it was you the night you first came to us,“ he said. He cast a sheepish glance at Zuko, who hurriedly turned to look straight ahead. “He argued that it meant you had a good heart and would not kill him in his sleep.”

Zuko swallowed and said nothing. Sokka seemed to misunderstand his silence and burst out, “Not that we think you’d do that! Not after all this time, I just- “

“Aang’s a good kid,” Zuko interrupted him, pushing down the choked-up feeling in his throat. “Too good to be real, honestly.”

Sokka let out a surprised, relieved laugh. “He is,” he agreed easily. “He doesn’t even eat meat, can you believe?”

The rest of the hunt passed in silence, but it wasn’t tense or awkward like when they had first started. Zuko stopped thinking about the million ways Sokka could attack him and let himself relax incrementally.

Sokka didn’t try to fill the silence anymore but communicated with him through little nudges and gestures when they came across a large deer-moose. A few minutes of efficient coordination brought it down, and the two of them began dragging it homeward.

“Let’s butcher it before we get to the Temple,” Sokka said, breaking the silence again. “It feels disrespectful to do it there, you know? Since they were against it.”

So they skinned the beast and butchered it almost half a mile from the temple, and packed it up in the sacks that Sokka had brought with him. Zuko had never really hunted anything this big before, but Sokka seemed to know what he was doing so he followed his lead. When they started back towards the temple, the sun had begun to make its way down the horizon. Sunsets here were always spectacular, but sunrises were harder to see since they were in the West. Sokka squinted at it.

“We better hurry,” he said, picking up his pace. “Katara will be pissed if we don’t get this back in time for her to cook it.”

Zuko felt himself tense for the first time since the start of the hunt and started walking faster. Sokka noticed. “Hey, calm down, she’ll just snap at us a bit and let it go and we’ll have soup for dinner again. It’s not a big deal.”

“I know,” said Zuko, more curtly than he intended.

Sokka gave him one of those annoying, confusing looks that radiated concern. “I’m serious, man. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you nearly square up whenever she looks at you. She’s not gonna eat you- “

“I know!” snapped Zuko, loudly. “It’s not about dinner!”

Sokka seemed unmoved. “Yeah, okay. I just meant- we aren’t gonna hurt you, okay? Not even Katara. She’s just… taking a bit longer to come around to all this than the rest of us. She’ll get used to it. You don’t have to like, eat in a corner and run off to your room when you’re done.”

Zuko kept quiet. The thought of sitting with the group after the buffer of food was removed was terrifying.

“I mean, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Sokka said. “But I think we’d like it if you did. Me and Toph and Aang, at least.”

Zuko didn’t reply to that either, but he held Sokka’s words firmly in his mind. _Me and Toph and Aang._

They got back to the temple just as the dying rays of the sun started spilling across the floor. Aang was laughing with Katara and Toph, his eyes sparkling in the golden light. He caught sight of Zuko and Sokka and waved enthusiastically.

“Hey guys!” he called. He met Zuko’s eyes and smiled widely, and the choked-up feeling was back.

He smiled tentatively back.

“ _Please_ tell me you guys brought back something good,” Toph said loudly, standing up and turning vaguely in their direction.

“Deer-moose!” Sokka announced proudly, dumping his sack on the floor. “ _Man_ , I’m wiped out.”

Toph cheered. Katara glanced at him, then at Zuko. She hadn’t smiled yet, but for once, her gaze wasn’t hostile. “Sounds like it was a good hunt.”

Sokka agreed. “Didn’t even get bitten by a cobra-goose this time.”

Katara took the sack he’d dropped and looked at Zuko, who froze before realizing he still had a sack. He handed it over to her, avoiding her eyes. Surprisingly, she didn’t snipe at him.

“Dinner will be at eight,” she told them, heaving the sacks over her shoulders. “Don’t be late. Aang, I’ve made you spicy egg noodles with tofu and mushroom. Is that alright?”

“Sounds perfect, Katara!” Aang beamed at her.

“Zuko, I need you to light the fire again.”

Zuko followed her to the campsite and rekindled the fire below the cooking pot. He almost offered to help chop up the vegetables and meat but stopped himself. She probably thought he would poison them.

“Do you need any help with uh… cleaning up or anything?” he asked. Katara looked up from unpacking the meat.

“No,” she said slowly. “Not right now.”

Zuko shifted awkwardly, wondering if he could just… leave. He watched her bend water into a pot and pull out a cooking knife and cutting board. She looked at him again. “You can go, you know?” she frowned. “You should clean up before dinner.”

“Oh,” Zuko said. “Okay.”

He fled then, his skin burning with embarrassment.

A few hours later found Zuko sitting anxiously in a corner as the others chattered over the campfire. It was dark now, the half moon hanging bright between the trees in the distance. Haru, Teo and the Duke had joined them for dinner, fitting in as seamlessly with the others as though they’d always been there. Katara hadn’t said a word to him for lingering, or even really looked in his direction at all. Her eyes were trained on Aang, her body language and expression soft and fond. She looked nothing like Azula. Zuko didn’t relax, but eventually managed to take his eyes off her and stare into the fire instead.

The orange of the flames reminded him of Mai. He missed her with a fierceness that surprised him. He wondered if she was still in Caldera. If she was still in her parents’ house, suffocated and annoyed with her life. If she would be with Azula when she inevitably attacked them again. Zuko’s gut clenched. The thought of fighting Mai, the only person in the world he had trusted other than his uncle, made him nauseous. She had been one of the few people in his life who had known him both before and after his banishment; she was the only one other than Uncle who had never manipulated or attacked him. Zuko had known that going against the Fire Nation would mean he’d have to betray her too, and he would make the same choice again if he could, but-

His heart ached. In the firelight, surrounded by kids his age who laughed so easily, as though there wasn’t a world out there ravaged by war and death, a world looking for _them_ , he felt unbearably alone.

He stood up, and suddenly, everyone’s eyes were on him.

“I- uh,” Zuko stammered, discomfited by the attention. “I’m going to bed now. Uh. Goodnight?” He aimed the last word in the general direction of Aang and Sokka, nodded vaguely at the others and started walking back before anyone could reply. He didn’t dare look at Katara.

“That was kind of weird,” he heard Toph comment behind him as he turned the corner. He walked faster and breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the room.

The picture of Iroh gazed serenely at him from next to his bed. Zuko took the picture in his hands and sat at the edge of his bed. His eyes stung. “I miss you,” he said softly.

He sat there until the moon had risen high in the sky and flooded his room with gentle, silver light. Then he put the picture down, double-checked the locks on his door and allowed himself to drift into an uneasy slumber.

He had to train the Avatar the next day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! My writing is a bit rusty, but I'm trying to use this series to get back on the wagon and consistently finish a work now and then. I'll try to post the next part of this series ASAP, but I have exams coming up so we'll see.
> 
> Stay safe and healthy, and happy new year!


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